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Robotic Reliability Engineering: Experience from Long-Term TritonBot Development

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Field and Service Robotics

Part of the book series: Springer Proceedings in Advanced Robotics ((SPAR,volume 16))

Abstract

While many researchers have built service robot prototypes that work perfectly under close human supervision, deploying an autonomous robot in an open environment for a long time is not always trivial. This paper presents our experience with TritonBot, a long-term autonomous receptionist and tour guide robot. We deployed TritonBot as an example to study reliability challenges in long-term autonomous service robots. During the past two years, we regularly did maintenance, fixed issues, and rolled out new features. In the process, we identified reliability engineering challenges in three aspects of long-term autonomy: scalability, resilience, and learning; we also formulated techniques to confront these challenges. Our experience shows that proper engineering practices and design principles reduce manual interventions and increase general reliability in long-term autonomous service robot deployments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of California San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, MC 0404, La Jolla, CA, 92093, USA

    Shengye Wang, Xiao Liu, Jishen Zhao & Henrik I. Christensen

Authors
  1. Shengye Wang
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  2. Xiao Liu
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  3. Jishen Zhao
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  4. Henrik I. Christensen
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Shengye Wang .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Keio University, Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan

    Genya Ishigami

  2. Department of Aerospace Engineering, Tohoku University, Sendai, Miyagi, Japan

    Kazuya Yoshida

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Wang, S., Liu, X., Zhao, J., Christensen, H.I. (2021). Robotic Reliability Engineering: Experience from Long-Term TritonBot Development. In: Ishigami, G., Yoshida, K. (eds) Field and Service Robotics. Springer Proceedings in Advanced Robotics, vol 16. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-9460-1_4

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